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Saturday, 24 September 2016

IT’S STILL THE SAME OLD STORY

So, here I am, at my nineteenth article for this site,
having not decided on what to write. I have future subjects in mind, with facts
and ideas percolating away, but nothing screaming to be written this very
minute. However, I will have a good word with myself about having something
really good for next time.

In making a film, this is not possible at all. Aside from hoping
to contribute to the art of storytelling, people at all levels of the film
business, from actors to crew to cinemas, depend on you for their livelihoods.
If you cannot start principal photography with a good script or, even worse, an
unfinished script, you risk the anger of too many people to contemplate.

Bearing in mind how most films are adaptations of stories
from another source, I will draw on an essay I wrote in 2013, upon the release
of zombie film “World War Z.” Based on a novel by Max Brooks, son of Mel, the
maker of “The Producers,” “Blazing Saddles” and Young Frankenstein,” the script
for “World War Z” was written by one person in 2008, and rewritten by another
over the following couple of years, before shooting the film began in 2011,
with a budget of $125 million.

The final budget grew to $200 million, more than the
combined cost of producing all of Mel Brooks’ film. The reason was the seven weeks
spent reshooting the entire last third of the film, after realising this part
of the story, and the ending, didn’t work. A third writer was contracted to
rewrite the script, but other commitments meant a fourth had to finish it off.

I haven’t heard much about “World War Z” since its release.
A sequel is planned for a 2017 release, having made enough at the box office to
warrant one, but spending millions of dollars on a film shouldn’t leave you
trying to remember it.

To beat this cycle of events, a film producer needs an
insane amount of luck, like Warner Bros. did with their winner of the 1943 Academy
Awards for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. That this film’s script is
often held up as one of the best ever written belies the bat-shit nature of its
conception.

It starts with two brothers, Julius and Philip Epstein, adapting
a one-act play no-one wanted to produce. They then went to write a short film for
the director Frank Capra, while Howard Koch was brought in carry on. After a
month, the Epsteins resumed their work, but Koch wasn’t told. Finally, the
weekend before shooting began, a meeting between the producer, director and the
writers, concluded there was only sixty pages of usable script, and no ending.

The rest of the script was written once filming began – with
the villain part thought to be too small, another writer, Casey Robinson, was
drafted in to the mix. Once the lead actor, thinking his character was too
weak, suggested a flashback sequence to fill in the gaps, the result was a
contest between all the writers to find the best scene. The ending was worked
out on the day it was shot, the director working out between the actors, using
what script they had, as to what the most logical conclusion they had. The
final line, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,”
was written by the producer, and recorded by the lead, Humphrey Bogart, a month
after finishing the scene.

So, yes, “Casablanca” is a brilliant script, and also why I usually
write only when I have a plan.